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New "Improved" Airplanes - But what about Coach class?

I'm a FF with AA. I see them advertising their new planes and how fabulous they are. However, all they ever seem to mention is First and Business Class improvements. What about Coach? Know any improvements here?

I think it's the same thing with other new planes on other airlines - big shout out about their 1st and Business class amenities, but not a word about us poor coach riders.

That's because they don't need to lure coach flyers to fly with the -- they will fill those seats regardless. Business Class and First Class are the money makers and they will do all they can to sell those seats instead of giving them away as upgrades or FF redemptions.

Surely you remember the AA "more room in coach" campaign of about 10 years ago. It didn't make a difference. AA is now putting more seats in coach - the exact opposite trend.

Despite all the rumblings, when it comes to making a decision the flying public doesn't give a hoot about anything but fares. They've even shown a willingness to ignore baggage fees and all the other misc fees.

If you're a frequent flyer with AA, then do you have Platinum or EXP elite status? If you do, have you used your complementary access to Main Cabin Extra? (Or if you're Gold you have free access till the end of this year.) Lots more legroom.

Incredibly have no idea what our AA status is. We only travel 2-3 year so we probably wouldn't be getting any perks. We use a Citi AA credit card so we get free baggage if we travel in the U.S., but we hardly ever do.

Just heard about Lufthansa making the seats in Coach even smaller to get the lay-down seats in Business class. Pretty soon the Coach people will have to sit with crossed legs and arms crossed across the chest just to fit in the seats.

Yep, coach pretty much sucks. After years of loyalty to CO I decided to give AA a try and found the AA transatlantic flights particularly bad. Crew /inflight service was just fine but the physical environment was so lousy - cramped seats, small overheads, outdated IFE - that I am heading back to CO (now, UA, of course) where lifetime elite status at least allows access to the extra room seats.

We flew on one of AA's new 777 wide body planes to LHR in May but we elected to pay the extra $98 pp to get a Main Cabin Extra seat. We felt it was well worth it. We had a wider seat and much more leg room. It was really nice to fly in a new plane.

The failure of MRTC showed most coach passengers care mostly about ticket price. Everyone on the plane gets there at the same time, right?

Some coach passengers ARE willing to pay a little more for roomier seats, more leg room. Hence the success of limited E+ or MCE seats. Plus elites who don't get upgraded get a little bone thrown their way.

I can't afford to fly business or first, but can afford to pay for upgraded economy. I don't care about food or service, I just want more comfort on long flights. Don't care about under 3 hour legs.

We have MCE for our DFW to SCL but no MCE on the 772 from EZE to DFW so we snagged row 41 instead. I wasn't interested in paying $98 each for the premium seats that weren't even MCE.